From a balcony the Dirga street stalls break open their shutters at about 7PM, faces of all ages selling skills. The stalls offer an array of objects, each object incorporating shells, including cashew nuts (a shell of black sugar, for example). Every stall I moved close to and some object or edible was placed in my palm and I was to taste, while, what felt like the entire seaside of West Bengal, watched on in pleasure and displeasure. The most peculiar taste these last few days was a hot cup of lemon tea, piqued with rock salt and sunlight, – a pungent taste and nauseating smell normally associated with beef stock or men’s toilets at train stations. Balloons, popcorn and gun games here, as at all seaside towns.
I purchased a conch shell to take part of the first sound of creation, back to Sydney. Their pearly white spirals suggest an infinity of space, directing their shape into that of a mouth as it hums ‘Om’. Holding the piece in my hands it seemed incapable of destroying all evil, as the Mahabharata claims. Yet, when the conch man blew it, the waves sat back and night air bristled, such was its force of authority and super nature.
My ears must have been smiling so greatly that the conch sheller breathed even more deeply, as if his back opened up a hole for more breeze to reach his lungs, and he blew a second time. Now, the sound was without a mellowness but a distressing alarm, caused by his tight embouchure and serious stare.
